To regulate the circulation of postage stamps of the Republic of Latvia, the Ministry of Transport (MT) has prepared a draft of Cabinet Regulations.

The draft prepared by MT establishes the procedure in which stamps and other types of postage are planned, issued and taken out of circulation.

The draft establishes that the right to issue postage stamps and take them out of circulation in the Republic of Latvia shall only be granted to the merchant with the obligation of providing the universal postal service throughout Latvia, in accordance with the obligations arising from the documents of the Universal Postal Union. At present such a merchant is VAS Latvijas Pasts.

The draft also determines that postage stamps of the Republic of Latvia are to be issued in accordance with an annual stamp issue plan approved by the Stamp Issue Commission. It shall be developed based on proposals for stamp topics, which will be accepted no later than six months before the planned year of issue.

The draft also determines the course of action for a postal merchant upon finding a postal item with invalid or counterfeit stamps.

The draft regulation Procedure of preparing, issuing and removing from circulation stamps of the Republic of Latvia and of action upon finding postal items with invalid or counterfeit stamps was announced on Thursday, April 8, at the meeting of the State Secretaries. For the regulation to come into force, it must still be adopted by the government.

The procedure is currently determined by the internal regulations of VAS Latvijas Pasts.

It is possible to get acquainted with the full text of the bill on the government'swebsite.